


Corruption

by Allstarsburnas01



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Post-Dark Disciple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:46:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23361172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allstarsburnas01/pseuds/Allstarsburnas01
Summary: A Sith acolyte sacrifices herself for love. One Jedi grieves over the loss of her Padawan, another massacres thousands. Corruption leaks through the force and obscures the light.
Relationships: Kit Fisto/Eeth Koth, Luminara Unduli & Quinlan Vos, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Luminara Unduli
Kudos: 7





	1. The Temple - Vigil

_Jedi do not form attachments._

Obi-wan’s sudden presence outside of her door is the only thing that saves Luminara Undulifrom choking on her own breath. 

She has spend the past week locked up inside of her quarters trying to meditate to no avail. The feeling of blank calm that has come naturally to her since she was a Padawan has been lost somehow, drowned in the inescapable despair of _Quinlan, Quinlan, Quinlan,_ and _Bariss, Barris, Barris._ They’re gone, she has to remind herself. They are gone, and it is not her fault, and _Jedi do not form attachments_ and _obsession over possessions and people creates the fear of losing those possessions and relationships which causes a Jedi to be trapped in a state of depression and loss_ and _There is no Emotion, there is Peace-_

When she senses Kenobi, raising a hesitant fist to knock on her door, she forces herself to breathe, forces her limbs to unlock from their fetal position. When she stands, her stomach protests, roiling so violently that she almost falls back onto the floor. She grits her teeth, forcing herself to put one foot in front of the other, until she waves one shaking palm in front of the door, signaling it open. She is surprised that she can still use the force at all. 

“Sorry to bother you, Master Unduli, but I-” Obi-wan Kenobi looks up, and stops short at what Luminara can only assume is her disheveled appearance. “It seems that neither of us has been having a very good week.” 

He tries to infuse the phrase with a snicker and a crooked smile, but he doesn’t seem to have the energy, and the humorous energy falls flat. He looks as bad as Luminara feels. Dark, crescent-moon circles are stamped firmly under his eyes, and his usually neat, slicked-back hair falls in scraggly pieces around his face, drawing large shadows across the anemic tone of his skin. 

“Hm.” Luminara tries to offer a smile in return, but her the corners of her mouth seem weighed down and she gives up. 

“Come in, Master Kenobi.” The words feel thick on her tongue, as if dust has gathered there in the absence of speech. 

Obi-wan trudges in exhaustedly and slumps onto the edge of her bed. Normally, two Jedi Masters would stand to discuss matters, but Luminara can already feel her legs beginning to wear out and sits down next to him. The tension in the silence between them is only dampened by the tiredness that they seem to share, neither wanting to discuss what they know will be inevitably brought up. Finally, Obi-wan takes it on himself to begin. 

“I know he was your best friend, Luminara. I’m sorry.” 

She feels a lump rise in her throat at his words. “Jedi do not form attachments.” The words pass through gritted teeth. Obi-wan sighs. 

“Luminara-”

“No.” She grits her teeth again, clenches her jaw and tries to keep down the tears that are welling up in her eyes. Not now. Not in front of another Jedi Master.

“I lost someone too, you know.”

She looks up, surprised. _How could she have forgotten?_

“Ventress.”

Obi-wan only nods, and she sees the pain in her eyes. She hasn’t given a second thought to the former Sith that had joined Quinlan on his mission, except to perhaps try and shift the blame onto her for what had happened to her friend. She has no reason to feel compassion for the woman. She’d saved Quinlan’s life, but all that had done in Luminara’s mind was counteract the massive damage and tragedy that the woman had caused before abandoning the Dark Side, something Luminara is reminded of almost daily by jolts of pain in her leg, which has never truly healed. Still, she feels compassion for Kenobi. She knows as well as the rest of the council that his relationship with the Sith woman had been… _complicated._

“I am truly sorry, Master Kenobi.” She knows that he words mean as as his. 

“Don’t trouble yourself, Luminara. It’s a bit hard for everyone to remember, after…all that.”

All that. Ventresses' sacrifice, the lonely burial on Darthomir, Quinlan gone, perhaps for good. 

“You got to be with her.” Luminara is surprised to hear herself say. “After everything, you were there to bury her. That must count for something, Master Kenobi.”

Obi-wan’s smile this time is genuine, but she notices the glittering sheen that has gathered at the corners of his eyes. 

“Yes, Luminara, I suppose it does.”

Its not enough, and they both know it. Luminara can feel his pain, fresh as if it were only yesterday that he forced himself to walk away from Quinlan and Ventress, to allow the traitorous Jedi to take her final moments. 

“I’m sorry, Obi-wan. I know it wasn’t enough.”

“I had her, Luminara.”

The air stills for a moment. Then Obi-wan continues. 

“It was only once, but I did. She came after me, looking for Vos, and we- we were both intoxicated and- I…I think I loved her, Luminara.”

A wave of shock hits her at his sudden outpouring of emotions, but it’s dulled by the heavy feeling inside of her, the same entity that has taken away her ability to care for the Jedi or the code. A few months ago, she would have gasped in shock, reported Kenobi to Yoda or the council, but now she can only nod in understanding, trying to ignore the way that tears are now flowing freely down Kenobi’s cheeks. 

They sit in silence, letting the heaviness in their chests seal their lips and blur their vision while they watch the sun set through the blinds. 

_Jedi do not form attachments._


	2. The Temple - Vigil

It is dawn.

The sunlight slowly creeps into the room, only to get swept up and trapped in the dense cloud of pink smoke that circulates the space, sealed tightly to keep the smell of Ambrian cheroots from wafting into the rest of the temple. 

“I always felt bad for him.”

Eeth Koth’s voice slips through the vapor, his form practically invisible behind its thickness. 

“Sure, Eeth.” Agen Kolar responds, only distinguishable from the other Zabrak through the outline of his long hair, swaying as he leans forward to inhale from the hookah that sits at the center of Eeth’s meditation chair. “Your pity was dully noted as you advocated for the man’s death.” 

“Your dedication to your impossible ideals is admirably strong, considering the circumstances.” Leaning out of the pink haze long enough to offer his companion a condescending smirk, Eeth toasts the group with his mouthpiece before retreating back into nonexistence. 

“We must believe in the good of our fellow Jedi. It is not for us to end the life of a brother who has simply lost his way.”

The veil around them shifts slightly, disturbed from its stagnancy. 

“You’re high as _haikta_ , Agen.”

The Zabraki expletive draws an explosive laugh from across the makeshift hookah table, and Kit Fisto leans forward, coughing from the sudden disturbance to his lungs.

“All in good fun, right Eeth?” 

He claps an amphibious hand on his friend’s thigh and forcefully expels more of the heavy pink smoke. His peace-making nature is still intact, Agen notes, but his eyes are dimmed and his eyelids are heavy. Kit is more of a glitterstim man, the younger Zabrak recalls, remembering the his own introduction to the hallucinogen at the hands of the Nautolan.

He remembers realizing that Fisto’s eyes look like the stars. 

The room tilts as he turns to look at his two companions, not lost enough in the smoke to hide the fact that Eeth’s hand is sliding down one of Kit’s tentacles, or that Fisto’s hand has begun moving upwards from its position on the older Zabrak’s thigh. 

He shakes his head and raises his mouthpiece and inhales. The rose-colored curtain falls once again. 

He closes his eyes. 

_“…no more glitterstim for me, Eeth. Not since Nadar.”_

_“…Sharad Hett. More times than I care to count.”_

_“…We’re all going to die, you know.”_

………..

The room comes rushing back to him. 

The pink brume has thickened further. Agen finds himself grateful for the murmur of Kit and Eeth’s voices through the fog, grounding him and easing the spinning of his head. 

“We’re going to die?” The words slur their way past his lips before his cheroots-addled brain can interpret them. 

“Of course we are.” Fisto’s booming laugh is miraculously intact, if not a bit morbid. 

A gasp, then a moan, comes from the direction of his companions and Agen is thankful for the density of the smoke, now solid like a wall and unmoving between them. 

“We’re Jedi, after all.”


	3. Purgatory - Culmination

They sit together. They don't talk, they don't move. For a long time, she doesn't even look at him.

It's getting late. The last, dusky strands of sunlight are beginning to slip away through the half-closed shutters of his room. It is much emptier than is used to be, stripped down to its bare, spartan necessities. Everything else in the room, any personal belongings, mementos, are gone. They were far too painful reminders of the man that he'd been before.

“I stopped going out.” Luminara Unduli breaks the silence.

Quinlan Vos laughs. It feels odd, forced. “Probably for the best.”

Silence again. Almost a year, he hasn't seen her. A year, spent in seclusion with Master Yoda as his only company, occasional visits from a concerned Obi-wan Kenobi and an angry Mace Windu, almost too eager to follow through with the threat of execution. She looks so much older, much more tired than he rememberes, but he figures that she's probably always looked that way. He can't help but keep the image of a happier, carefree Luminara in his mind, especially when _this_ is the reality.

“This is what happens, you know. This is why the Jedi do not form attachments.” Luminara is always so curt, to the point. It hurts him.

“You know, Luminara, I-”

“I should know.”

He doesn't expect that. Then he looks into her eyes and sees the hurt and it _hits_ him. Luminara has tried so hard to be the perfect Jedi, an example of the code for everyone to follow. But she can't escape attachment any more than the rest of them can. Bariss must have been like this for her. The loss that he has felt for the past year, ever since Ventress died in his arms- Luminara knew what it was like. She'd lost her padawan to the dark side, and then-

It takes everything in Quinlan's power to stop himself from collapsing then and there. Luminara had lost _him_.

“Luminara, I-” He chokes. He can't bring himself to speak.

She shakes her head and looks away, a faint glimmer of tears caught in the faint remainder of sunlight in the room. “It's okay Quinlan. You came back.”

He nods back, and moves his hand closer to her own, studying the small pattern of squares tattooed onto her almost golden skin. He lets it rest there, the edge of his palm barely touching hers.The old Quinlan would have hugged Luminara tight, entwined their hands until Luminara became embarrassed and moved away. He can't even imagine that anymore. Even now, the inch of contact between them twists his stomach with discomfort and fear. Not of Luminara, but of himself. How many more people will he hurt? How many will end up like Desh, like Ventress, because of him?

Suddenly, a calm washes over him. He looks up to see Luminara gazing serenely at him, pushing waves of calm through her hand into his, through the tiny, tiny amount of touching skin. The warmth of her hand breathes onto his.

“It's over.” Luminara whispers.

Quinlan tries to smile. It doesn't work. Everything feels too heavy, even with Luminara beside him. He'll never be the same anymore. Nothing will.

_I guess I had to grow up, eventually._


End file.
